Martin Scorsese, killing it in Morocco. (With Marion Cotillard and Patricia Clarkson at the 13th Marrakech International Film Festival.), By Dominique Charriau/Getty Images.

If you’ve been sitting on any Death Becomes Her-style immortality elixirs, now is the time to pony them up: Martin Scorsese, one of the last living genius filmmakers (who has not become rusty in old age) has hinted that his retirement is rapidly approaching. During the Marrakech Film Festival this past weekend, Scorsese (serving as the fest’s jury president this year) submitted to a brief Q&A with local film students.

There he reminisced about his brotherhood with longtime collaborator Robert De Niro: “[H]e’s the only one alive working in cinema, in this business, who knows who I am and where I come from. That’s it.”

He discussed the personal significance of some of his classics: “[Mean Streetsis] based on myself and my friends and a more complicated reading is [it’s about] my father and his brother. It turns out a few years later I realized that.”

And he revealed that as a longtime filmmaker, one of his most difficult challenges has been maintaining his energy and optimism about film: “But the main thing is to always to protect that spark of energy, because it’s just physically difficult and then it becomes emotionally difficult so you have to protect that [desire and drive].”

The Oscar winner also slipped in the fact that after four decades in film, and seven best director nominations, he is considering withdrawing from his chosen profession. “Yes, I have the desire to make many films, but as of now I’m 71 and there’s only a couple more left if I get to make them. I miss the time when I had the desire to experiment and try different kinds of films, I miss that time, but that’s done, it’s over. There is obligation as you get older, you have family.”

Someone, bar the Hollywood exit doors! Alert the retirement communities that they are not to allow a jittery director with thick eyebrows into their confines! We selfishly need Martin Scorsese to continue making epic dramas starring a slick-haired Leonardo DiCaprio. Scorsese is currently filming an untitled Bill Clinton documentary and is attached to a historical religious drama starring Andrew Garfield, as well as a Frank Sinatra biopic. His next film,The Wolf of Wall Street, bows this Christmas.